You've invested time and money in creating a valuable digital good. Now it's time to sell things online to recover your investment. Here are the steps to follow:
You must choose with extreme care program name. Regardless of your will, most backlinks on which you will obtain will contain as text the name of the program. Basic criteria that you need to consider are high searches on Google and low competition.
Your program can be invaluable. But if people do not tend to search for words which appear in the name of your application, it will be very hard to find it. And sell things online will be small. Also, if competition for certain keywords is high will be hard to get ranked in the top 10 on Google. However from 11th onwards the sales decrease substantially.
Give just enough time to this step. You can use Market Samurai, Micro Niche Finder, Web CEO, Long Tail Pro for this purpose.
Here is a personal example that illustrates previous steps as well as those which next. You can use it as a template to guide you for ranking in the top 10 on Google for your own keywords. It works!
It is well known that many vendors prefer to sell things online through PayPal. This is because buyers trust PayPal as a payment intermediary.
If you want to sell your digital goods via PayPal, you should know that after the payment the buyer expects to be automatically redirected to a thank you page where he can find the download link of digital goods. The problem is that the download URL can be made public on the internet and ruin your sales.
PayPal Button Generator 2.0 create a PayPal Buy Now button that redirects the buyer to a thank you page that contains a unique download link which expires after a specified period of time. I chose the name of the program after analyzing the suggestions offered by Market Samurai for "paypal" keyword research. I watched as searches to be relatively frequent and moderate competition. You can check out on Google that a page from the domain simplexsolver.com ranks quite well for the keywords "paypal button generator" and its synonyms "paypal button maker", "paypal button creator".
The keyword "paypal button generator" was added to the Title of the purchasing page of the program, in the META Description, URL, Header Tag, First Paragraph, as throughout the whole page dedicated to the program. These are good practices of SEO which is the assumption of ranking better than competitors in the top 10 on Google. As seen below Download.com apply the same tactics. It's no wonder so that I also have a link from them to "PayPal Button Generator" in the top 10 on Google. And yes I know I'm repeating myself. It's very important not to be the eleventh on Google.
Although apparently seemed tempting to named the program "PayPal Button" whereas searches are 10 times more numerous than for "PayPal Button Generator" I didn't do it. Top 10 places are occupied by the giant of Luxembourg. Anytime they could remove me from the top 10 if I accidentally ended up there.
Good ranking on google.com was achieved through manual submission to major software directories (download.com, softpedia.com, brothersoft.com., and so on). For software directories with a lower page rank (less than or equal to 4) you can use applications such as Robosoft, GSA Auto Soft Submit or Pad Submit Worker. They will generate a PAD file in XML format that you can submit automatically or semi-automatically into software directories. In this way you get many backlinks. Google recognizes as legitimate this mode for the promotion of software applications. Anyway acceptance by the moderators of software directories will be a gradual one. It can extend on some months or even years. The dominant opinion of professionals in the field of SEO is that the risk of a penalty by Google is low for this type of software promotion.
Here is a good example of file PAD created carefully in Robosoft. In PayPal_Button_Generator_pad.xml are taken the best ideas from the analysis of dozens of PAD files. You can use it as a template for your own software application. It comply with the standards and recommendations of professionals in the field of SEO.
This file PAD uses optional DynamicPAD technology implemented only in Robosoft. Of course, it is not mandatory to have variations permitted by DynamicPAD program descriptions. These descriptions are particularly useful if you also want to get in the top 10 on Google hits from software directories or press release for the same keyword searches.
You can use article spinning software like Chimp Rewriter if you don't have time or inspiration to rewrite the main software descriptions using other synonyms. I think 20 variants should be enough. Sometimes ago when I used Chimp Rewriter to generate those DynamicPAD descriptions it was available for testing a beta version with all the features working. However, it is recommended by SpinChimp the free version of Chimp Rewriter that they differ by at least 30 percent so that the results will not be filtered by Google. So arm yourself with patience in replacing semiautomatic synonyms and rewriting sentences. If you are satisfied with a single snippet in the first 10 on Google after certain keywords you can even ignore the whole DynamicPad section.
However DynamicPAD technology implementation is an advanced topic. Requires access to an Apache server with PHP and MySql enabled. Also it is necessary to create a custom .htaccess file when hosting your site on a web server shared by multiple users.
This article has as its target segment persons who sell things online or want to sell digital goods over the internet. More than likely that PayPal Button Generator is worth being tested whereas it is an e-commerce solution easy to install and easy to use for this purpose.
A major problem but also an opportunity at the same time is that people potentially interested in buying digital goods search by numerous other keywords. You have to get ranked well on Google on these searches too. You must write as I do now articles in the field of interest to potential buyers. They must be convinced that your application at one click away is the solution to their problems. Articles must be original and have a good quality to be accepted by the moderators of articles directories. This way you get much needed backlinks for ranking in top 10 on Google for other keywords too.
If you're not a native speaker of English, writes the article in your native language and translate it into English using online services (Google Translate, Bing Translator, FreeTranslation.com and MyMemory.translated.net) or translation software (Babylon or Lingoes). No translation tool it's perfect. But the four online services are generally sufficient. Compare the translations and pick the best one. Splits phrases in sentences or rewrite them more easily in your native language if translations are questionable. Translate them again. Possibly then use a grammatical correction program in English (White Smoke is a good one even though it is full of spyware).
Finally, reverse the direction of translation in online services or software used. If the meaning of the translation obtained in your native language is close to the initial article, you can declare happy. I'm not a native speaker of English. These programs helped me to generate an almost grammatically correct content for my website.
Use online applications to generate such image of a button for purchasing your program.
It is amazing what can be done with the installer in combination with a URL shortening service such as Google Shortnest URL or other similar ones.
To get an idea I suggest you installing the trial version of PayPal Button Generator on Windows. This is a portable one which will not make changes in registry. After installation http://goo.gl/#analytics/goo.gl/ggukwR/two_hours provides information on the country, the version of Windows, default browser used, IP address, date, time, and duration of the installation.
A detailed map of the distribution by country of the users you get by accessing http://goo.gl/ggukwR.info . Statistical information collected by the NSIS installer is encoded in pseudo-URLs which you can view via Google Shortnest URL. You'll find that these statistics actually differ significantly from those offered by download sites. If the application is downloaded from the internet, does not mean it necessarily will also be installed. NSIS installer allows collection of statistics closer to reality regarding use of the application.
I still have a lot to say but I prefer to develop my ideas in the field of ecommerce and sell things online in the next articles. After all there is only a title, a META description and the first paragraph. It is useless to overload them with keywords because the importance it will be diluted. It will be hard to get ranked in the top 10 on Google. Stick to 1, 2 main keywords in each article.